blake

Wow Lyall! Your garage rocks! Now let me guess.... I think I see a white '87-'89 Coupe and a '92 or '94 964 Turbo underneath. I'll take either of those 911s! That white 911 looks so damn timeless...

Nice collection, and a very nice garage...

-Blake

GT3 Nut

VERY BAD!!!! I know from experience. I had 2 I-drive units - nothing but problems. I now use the Liftmaster Jack Shaft. It works great and is very quiet too.

kurt M

You need to look at the gap between the ramps on the lift spec sheet before purchasing. Few if any have enough space to cleanly pull a late 911 motor unless you remove parts that would otherwise not need to be removed. Most 911 motors are wider than the inside wheel track in places. 4 post lift decks have to be set closer together than the wheel track. I bet it has been done as there are some very smart creative people out there.

Right after I got my 2 post I was going to make a set of long ramps that mounted to the 2 post arms and let you drive on and off like a 4 post. I ended up never getting around to it as they would have been heavy and hard to move or store when not in use. This thread and another one elsewhere got me to thinking about how to convert a 2 post to a 4 post. Over the weekend I made a set of adaptors that might make the 2 post 4 post thing largely moot for lighter weight cars. My 2 post can now work just like a 4 post when needed.

Home made and not fail modeled it is built to hold up sports cars not dually extended cab trucks. Some folks commented on “Only 4 bolts and they are upside down” I used grade 8 inch and a quarter bolts, 150,000 psi each so there is over a 200 to one safety ratio in the bolts. I bet I could lift my entire shop, brick, slab and all with the 4 of them. Not subject to extended high or low frequency vibration so no chance of the nuts backing off. Bolts are set and shouldered in rectangular 1/8 ERW box tubing and welded top and bottom. The bolts are also welded to the 1/4 inch angle full width reinforcement across the bolt head as well as to the 1/4 inch top plate. The top plate and bottom angle iron are welded to each other as well. My amateur hour thinking puts the weakest point right where the 1.75 X 1.20 wall EWR tubes meet the end plates. The bolts point up so you can set the adaptors in place and drop lift onto them even if a car is on the lift. Drop car wheels into adaptors. Pull arms from under car raise lift a little and adjust arms and lower them onto the adaptor bolts. Spin the nuts down and lift car on adaptors. Removal and switching back to body lift is reverse and no need to move the car at all. Top mount ether reduces total height cap or makes the device more complex. This is not a build to design it is build from what was laying around in the shop except the nuts and bolts.
Not shown are four 2 foot long ramps made from 2X8 that have notches in them for the cross tubes. First ramp pair is up-over-down, second pair is up and hit bump stop. All you need to do is drive on as you would on a 4 post until you feel the wheel contact the bump stop on the second ramp set and lift car. Remove small ramps from floor and slip them on the cross tubes under the car to store.

Takes little time to convert and conversion from body lift (2 post) to wheel lift (4 post) can be done without moving the car from lift if you like. You can store the car on the wheels and then convert to 2 post mode to change wheels or work without moving the car. While in 4 post mode there is far more under car clearance as there is no space taken by decks. I have a 10’6 ceiling and have over 6 foot clearance under the car and lift arms when in 4 post mode. There is only a 2 inch ramp rise to clear and I am able to push a non running car up and onto the ramps and lift. (The battery went dead again)

Slantnose!

That's really nice..never thought of that, good idea there.

Fast82930

Thanks Blake. My wife and I have this white car black car thing , her yellow S4 is the one exception. The 87 Carrera is in near showroom condition and a great car!. Below that is my 964 RSR look 1982 930 track car, 2500lbs & 380rwhp. Wife’s 03 Boxster S. Missing is my black 1985.5 944 that's currently in the shop being turned into a 944 Cup / SCCA ITS racer. My Tow vehicle and trailer sit outside and both are black. I really wish I'd built a bigger garage......

Lyall

mts

Kurt - that is really slick. If only I could weld.....I may have to bug a local friend to do something similar for me.

Mike S.

+1000

Kurt...very, very clever. Simple and clean design. I really like this. Yep...easy to drive onto and you know where you are. Only thing I'd add is to stitch in a piece of plate under each wheel pocket to get a little better tire support patch for long term storage.

Hope you don't mind when I copy this. Remember, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

Mike

todinlaw

Thanks for the tip, It looked good in the sales info. but nothing beats experience. I will check out Liftmaster.

hacker-pschorr

Has anyone looked into roll up doors? I know they are usually cheap, used in storage units. Anything higher quality for a nice garage?

Mikelly

They aren't cheap at all... The door I bought was not a roll up, but has an R10 value and works well at keeping the heat in. The roll up version of this door was twice the cost and not insullated.

My new door, installed 4 weeks ago...

hacker-pschorr

That's a deal breaker right there.

por944s2

Has anyone with a 4 post lift tried to drop a transaxle or engine. I have a 944 and plan on adding a 914-6 to the mix as well. My use will be mostly for storage purposes, but would want to able able to do a clutch job on both vehicles as well as other work that would be best with a 2 post? So that's the rub? What's worse a susp that hangs or the ease of storage a 4 poster? My ceiling height is 9, 6in, before the door, so about 9ft. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Bruce SEA 993

Kurt,

Great solution for the storage on the suspention on a 2 post lift.

If I may Monday night quarterback your design...The weld for the stud is all that is holding the stud to the plate. If it were possible to use a bolt (maybe with a thin head on it) that mechanically was supporting the load and welded in place to hold position rather than load it would have a little higher factor of safety. It is prolly overkill to even worry about but in lifting, there are all kinds of ways to get into trouble. In a previos life I had a safety engineer go over my designs and was instructed on how to have the material support the load even if the welds failed. Takes a lot more fabrication time but overhead lifting is not taken lightly in industry.

Im think you will be OK but when it is 6 of one, half dozen of the other I like to go conservative.

I also love the shots of the inline door openers. I have zero clearance on my downstairs garage so I went outside the door track with a standard opener. I will post a picture tonight.

Cheers!

Bruce SEA 993

I never saw the cool ways you guys got the openers out of the way so I just did this:





This shows how close the garage door comes to the ceiling...it actually hits the drywall:

kurt M

Thanks for checking it with a educated eye. This is a wing it with (a little) common sense and some materal I had on hand build. As such I tried to over do it at every point. It would be cool if I could get a failure model run on it. With a 2200# car on it there is about 1/8 deflection in the tubing on the rear of the car and less in the front. The give is not much more with my 4800# PU truck on it and there is 100% spring back. When the car is on the lift in normal mode the posts deflect inward some and I bet if I had a cross bar lift the tube deflection would be far less. I think increased load cap could come from thicker wall tubing, round and box, and perhaps gussets where the tubes meet the end plates. I might add some plate in the wheel holes later if the tires get deformed from storage. I do not want to if this is not needed as the car has little chance of rolling off the device as built.

Full head bolts were used. They are counter sunk in the box tube via a close fit hex hole the size of the head in the bottom of the box tube and a close fit hole for the bolt shaft to protrude out of the top of the box tube. The bolts shoulder in the box tube, are welded to the box tube in 2 places (shaft and head) welded to the 1/4 inch angle plate across the bolt head and to the 1/4 top plate.